Can anyone tell me any experiences with the following two lenses: 1) Tamron Af 80-210 4.5-5.6 2) Tamron AF 28-80 3.5 -5.6 I just want to know if they go together well with my Canon Elan 11E that I just bought.

Thanks.

-- Dave Poon (poonchuk@uniserve.com), June 02, 2000

Answers

Well, I guess no one else will give you there opinion about these, so I'll tell you what I know (& what I think too).

Tamron, like a lot of others, makes good lenses, cheap lenses and stuff in the middle. These aren't in the good class and they aren't in the middle either. I'm not saying they are bad, they're just not very good. Canon makes stuff in this class and they aren't very good either. The Canon 28-80 f:3.5-5.6 comes to mind. Most people that care about picture quality (I assume you do since you bought the Elan IIe) will usually grow tired of not quite sharp, and a little dull pictures. So they end up trading up for something better and loosing a lot of money doing it.

I'd recommend skipping the low ground and going for better glass right now. Canon's 28-105 USM is a big step up in quality and convenience with its full time manual focus feature. The 28-135 adds a bit of range and image stabilization to the above, but costs considerably more. The Tamron 28-105 f:2.8 is also quite good, but a bit more money yet.

If you know that you are really picky, then you might skip the middle ground altogether and go for Canon's "L" series zooms or any of their prime (non-zoom) lenses. Actually, a 50mm f:1.8 is a great, sharp, fast lens for very little money.

For the long lens, your choices are a bit more limited. I wouldn't get a cheap 70-200/210mm lens. They're just too poorly made, and I've not heard of a sharp one. Canon's, Tamron's, and other's popular 70-300mm or 100-300mm zooms are quite convenient, but none of them are very sharp at the long end. Canon's (like most of the others) are good up to about 200mm and acceptable at 300mm if you stop it down a bit. The Canon 100-300 USM adds full time manual focusing, which is a great feature in tele lenses. It's also built better but costs more than the others. Canon also offers their 70- 300mm with image stabilization as well, which is a great feature, buts adds quite an expense to an otherwise, cheaply built lens.

Your other options for long lenses are Canon's "L" series 70-210 in either f:2.8 or f:4, depending on your budget and willingness to pack a lot of heavy glass, or getting a prime tele in the length you want. Of course Tamron and other make equivilents for these choices as well.

None of the good options are cheap, and if it was my money, I'd get one good 28-105 USM now and save up for longer glass later.

-- Jim Strutz (jimstrutz@juno.com), June 03, 2000.

i've played with the tamron 80-210... didn't really like it. it's slow in focusing, hunts a bit and if i could remember right, kind of bad construction, very plastic-ish. i would think the same of the 28- 80 (same level lens). i would agrees with jim's recommendation. get the 28-105usm and save your money for later. the 28-105usm was my first lens. and i still have it. after that, i got myself a 70-300(i eventually got rid off), then a 85 1.8, then a 50 1.8 mk1, and now a 80-200 2.8L...

-- howard shen (hshen@lsm.org), June 04, 2000.

Thanks for the advice Jim and Hshen. I definitely done my research on the camera Elan 11E but none on lens. This will really help.

Dave

-- Dave Poon (poonchuk@uniserve.com), June 04, 2000.